Greetings and thank you for your warm welcome. Special thanks to Jose Nino, the
President and Chief Executive Officer of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce,
to Ronald Montoya, Chairman of the Board of the Chamber, and to all the members and
friends of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

I am pleased to be here with you at the U.S. Hispanic Chamber's first Annual
International Business Opportunities Conference. I am also honored to share the podium with
the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, William Daley, the Chilean Minister of Economy, Dr.
Alvaro Garcia Hurtado, and the Mexican Secretary of Commerce, Dr. Herminio Blanco
Mendoza.

I am especially pleased to be here because this is a time of tremendous growth and
opportunity throughout the world. Telecommunications has been an important engine for
growth both here and abroad. It is one of the fastest growing sectors in the U.S. economy.
Eight million of the 12 million new jobs created under the Clinton-Gore administration have
been in the telecommunications and information sectors.

Yet, the communications network remains out of reach for most of the world's
inhabitants. Half of the people in the world today have never made a telephone call. Half of
the world's population lives two day's walk from a telephone. In some countries, the waiting
list time for installation of a basic wireline telephone is ten years--or more. This is the legacy
of monopoly in the telecommunications industry.

More and more people are recognizing the damage this legacy has caused and are
changing the rules to foster new opportunities. Countries around the world are realizing the
importance of competition and private investment to an efficient and widely accessible
telecommunications network. As countries open up to private investment and competition, we
will see dramatic improvements in access by the dawn of the next millennium.

The agreements reached by the World Trade Organization in December 1996 and
February 1997 will facilitate those developments and vastly increase opportunities for trade
and commerce in telecommunications. Development of the telecommunications networks will
in turn increase opportunities for business of all kinds.

Today, telecommunications is a $600 billion dollar industry. Under these Agreements,
it can double or triple over the next ten years.

WTO is guided by four basic principles: trade without discrimination; predictable and
growing access to markets; fair competition; and encouraging development and economic
reform.

Translating these principles into real-world practice, membership in the WTO enables a
nation's companies to gain access to markets in foreign countries.

It permits firms to do business in foreign countries on the same terms and conditions as the
domestic companies that operate in the same sector and that provide the same goods or
services.

The two WTO Agreements, finalized in December 1996 and February 1997,
respectively, opened international telecom markets around the world to competition,
investment, and development. The WTO Agreement on Basic Telecommunications Services
and the Information Technology Agreement make that possible.

The Agreement on Basic Telecommunications Services is the first multilateral trade
agreement ever reached in the field of telecommunications and development. The 69 signatory
countries comprise the world's major telecom markets, and account for more than 90% of the
world's telecommunications services. The services covered in the Agreement account for 85%
to 90% of all telecom service revenues.

Before this Agreement, only 17% of the top 20 telecom markets were open to U.S.
companies. Now they have access to nearly 100% of these markets.

The Agreement on Basic Telecommunications Services covers local, long distance, and
international voice telephone services, including cellular, paging, personal communications
services, mobile data and fax services, and satellite services. It does not apply to broadcasting.

Signatories to the Agreement on Basic Telecommunications Services have committed to
treat international services suppliers the same as domestic suppliers. Under the Agreement,
you will not have to pay extra duties or fees for the privilege of doing business in member
countries, and you will not have to pay more for your overhead costs or have your profits
more heavily taxed.

Through the Agreement, 52 countries guaranteed access to their markets for
international services and facilities, with 5 more countries open for selected international
services. 56 countries will also open up for all or selected services supplied by satellite
suppliers.

Additionally, the Agreement on Basic Telecommunications Services creates new and
special opportunities for investing in telecommunications facilities and services in foreign
countries.

44 countries will permit full foreign ownership or control of all telecom services and
facilities, and 12 countries will allow foreign ownership or control of certain telecom services.
The remaining 9 will permit some degree of foreign ownership in their telecom services
market.

The Agreement will create over a million jobs in the U.S., and many more throughout
the world, in the next ten years. Companies in the United States and abroad will need people
with experience in marketing, construction, real estate, securing land use permits, product and
technology development, software development, distribution and many other skills to deploy
telecommunications networks.

There will also be opportunities for resellers. Resellers buy minutes of telephone usage
in bulk at wholesale prices, then resell them to the public. They are often able to provide
lower prices than the telephone companies because of their low overhead. Resale is new in
many countries, but resellers have a right to enter and compete, and can provide specially
tailored services to consumers.

Opportunities abound for small businesses who can identify and fill market niches, as
well as for large firms. Hispanic-American businesses are well poised to take advantage of
these opportunities. The U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce has led several trade missions
to Latin America. The ties formed through those missions can help forge partnerships that will
lead to mutual benefit.

Many of you have also capitalized on opportunities at home to help develop
telecommunications networks and apply them to business needs. I encourage you to let us
know how we can such foster opportunities, and to comment on the FCC rulemakings which
develop the framework for competition. Cathy Sandoval, Director of the FCC's Office of
Communications Business Opportunities, Eric Liang Jensen, OCBO Deputy Director, and Bob
Calaff, Senior Counsel to the International Bureau are just a few of the dedicated FCC staff
members who can help you through the regulatory process.

Many countries are changing their regulatory systems to facilitate competition. 65
signatory countries, representing 93% of the world's telecommunications markets, have
pledged in a binding Reference Paper to adopt regulatory principles that promote competition
in the telecom services market.

The Reference Paper commits foreign countries to establish independent regulatory
bodies, guarantees that companies will be able to interconnect with networks in foreign
countries at fair prices, forbids anti-competitive practices such as cross-subsidization, and
mandates transparency of government regulations and licensing.

As markets open to competition and private investment, new businesses will find
themselves competing against companies which were former monopolies and are dominant
carriers with power to resist foreign competition. The regulatory system will be your best
protection against the lingering power and extensive market share of such companies.

The Agreement on Basic Telecommunications Services will go into effect on January 1,
1998. The United States has begun to work with its major trading partners so that on the
effective date, all countries can honor their commitments.

Chile, for example, has made some of the most extensive commitments to open its
market to competition. We look forward to developing a partnership with all countries in the
Americas to facilitate implementation of our mutual WTO commitments.

The WTO Information Technology Agreement will have a major impact because it will
lower or abolish tariffs levied on information technology around the world. The 41 countries
signing the Information Technology Agreement account for over 93% of world trade in
Information Technology (IT) products. The Agreement covers computer hardware and
software, semiconductors and other electrical components, and most telecommunications
equipment.

Tariff cuts have already begun. Tariff reductions began on July 1, 1997. Tariffs will
continue to fall in stages over the next 2 and 1/2 years.

Eliminating tariffs on IT equipment is critical. Some member countries impose tariffs
of 15% or more. A number of countries in the developing world impose tariffs of 50% or
higher on IT products. Lower tariffs will sharply reduce the costs of building out
telecommunications systems, and dramatically reduce the costs of communications and
information services to the user.

In today's information-oriented economy, communications and information products
and services are increasingly becoming a necessity. A recent study by the National Federation
of Independent Businesses found that 77% of all U.S. small businesses have a computer, and
that 40% have access to on-line services. The average U.S. small business has 4 telephone
lines, and many have multiples of that number.

The average retail price in 1997 for a computer in the United States is $1,800. A ten
per cent tariff would increase that price to $1,980. Peru has a flat tariff for all sectors of 12%;
Bolivia has a flat tariff of 10%; and in Venezuela, the tariff on telecom goods/computers is
5%. In West Africa, Ghana has a 10% tariff on computers; Nigeria's tariff on computers is
15%.

In Francophone Africa, the tariff on computers in Senegal is 45% and in the
Cameroon, 55%. In East Africa, Uganda and Kenya impose a 58% tariff on computers;
Tanzania's tariff is 59%. An $1,800 computer would cost over $2,862 in Tanzania due to high
tariffs. And that price does not account for shipping costs and distributor's mark-ups. High
tariffs place a computer beyond the reach of all but the very wealthy.

Lower tariffs would make information and communications technologies accessible to
more businesses, small and large. They would also help make these technologies more
accessible to schools and health care centers in order to deliver services to people in rural and
remote regions. Citizens of the 42 countries that have committed to reducing tariffs through
the Information Technology Agreement, including Costa Rica and the United States, will reap
the benefits of the Information Age more quickly as a result of these lower tariffs.

Charlene Barshefsky, the U.S. Trade Representative, did a great job in leading the
U.S. team in the WTO effort. I am proud that the FCC was a part of the WTO team, along
with the Departments of State and Commerce.

The leadership of the U.S. Congress and the Clinton-Gore White House was also
crucial to the Agreements. Their vision in adopting the 1996 Telecommunications Act and
committing the United States to competition encouraged these market-opening policies. The
concrete steps of Mexico, Chile, El Salvador and many other countries to open their markets
and increase competition helped to create the momentum that led to the WTO Agreements. It
is wonderful to see the vision of greater communications access being realized.

During my first year as Chairman of the FCC, Vice President Al Gore and I traveled to
Buenos Aires, Argentina in March 1994 to the World Telecommunications Development
Conference. It was the first conference ever convened by the world's telecommunications
regulators to focus on the developing world.

At that assembly, Vice President Gore called for the world to adopt five principles to
develop telecommunications networks on a global scale: (1) competition; (2) private sector
investment; (3) open access to the network for all information providers and users; (4) flexible
regulation; and (5) universal service. The nations of the world accepted these principles as part
of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action.

These principles were subsequently adopted at a series of international meetings. At the
1994 Summit of the Americas in Miami, a proposal was issued that the Americas should be a
single Free Trade Zone by the year 2005.

In September 1996, the Senior Telecommunications Officials met inWashington as a
follow-up to the Summit of the Americas. They issued a Declaration of Principles and Plan of
Action, recognizing that telecommunications was a fundamental part of the establishment of a
hemisphere-wide free-trade zone.

These reform efforts have long roots in the Americas. In the 1980's, Chile adopted
broad market liberalizations. Chile also introduced competition into the local telephone market
and established a new regulatory environment dedicated to facilitating competition.

Mexico privatized its wireline telephone system in 1990, and is now opening its
telecommunications market to foreign investment. Foreign companies may own up to 49% of
wireline telecommunications companies.

As a result, teledensity, the number of private wireline telephones per 100 inhabitants,
has risen dramatically. In 1989, 6 out of every 100 Mexicans had telephone service in their
home. In 1997, 10 out of every 100 Mexicans had such service. In 1988, Chile privatized its
telecommunications sector. In 1989 only 5 of every 100 Chileans had a telephone. In 1997, 15
in 100 Chileans had a telephone, an increase of 150%.

Between 1991 and 1997, teledensity increased throughout Latin America, rising, for
example, by 100% in Peru, 90% in Argentina, and 35% in Venezuela. These increases
largely result from regulatory reforms which brought private investment into
telecommunications in these countries.

We are also making progress with our international trading partners in reforming the
international settlement rate system. Such reforms will lower international telephone rates by
changing the system used to compensate telephone companies for the cost of completing an
international call. Under the old system, callers in the United States paid well above the actual
costs of the call to speak to someone in a foreign country. The rates were particularly high
when calling Mexico. 12.3% of all international calls from the United States go to Mexico.
Mexico is the second most frequently called country from the United States after Canada.

Yet, for every dollar U.S. callers paid for calls to Mexico, seventy cents represented a
settlement payment subsidy to Mexico. Between 1990 and 1995, U.S. callers paid to Mexico
an average of $501.9 million a year in settlement payments.

Our mutual goal should be to make the price of communications services within this
hemisphere dramatically lower. While we still have a way to go in the U.S.-Mexican efforts
to reduce settlement rates, I know that business people like you and families on both sides of
the border will benefit tremendously when these reductions are made.

Charlene Barshefsky estimated that within the next five years, the average cost of
international calls in this hemisphere will drop by 80%, from approximately$1.00 per minute
to $0.20 per minute. This will stimulate demand for international telecom services, and
promote business opportunities throughout the Americas.

From our experience in the United States we know that competition brings lower prices
and better service. In areas of the United States where Personal Communications Service
(PCS) operators compete with cellular providers, wireless rates have dropped by 25%. In the
wireline communications system, competition has also lowered prices.

In 1984, the United States had one long distance service provider - AT&T. Today, we
have 500 long distance service providers. In 1985, the average price of a domestic long
distance call was 22.6 cents per minute. In July 1997, it was 17.5 cents per minute.

The FCC has been working very hard during the past year and a half to implement the
Telecommunications Act of 1996. The Act encourages competition by permitting competitors
to access the most basic elements of the local telephone exchange network. It also allows
companies to expand into new lines of business. For example, once the local network is open
to effective competition, local telephone companies can enter the long-distance market.

On May 7, 1997, the FCC adopted orders regarding Universal Service, Access Charges
and Price Caps. These orders establish a system to promote competition in the wireline
telecommunications industry by establishing incentives to become more efficient and
competitive. They also set in motion universal service policies that will ensure that all
Americans, including low-income consumers and those who live in rural, insular and high cost
areas, have affordable service. It will also connect schools, libraries and rural health care
providers to communications and information networks through the universal service fund.

These orders will lower phone rates of U.S. consumers as access charges are reduced to
long-distance callers. This Tuesday, American consumers began to reap the benefits of those
reforms. Pursuant to the Access Charge Reform Order, on July 15, 1997, AT&T and MCI
lowered their basic schedule domestic long distance rates by approximately 5% in daytime and
evening hours, and by approximately 16% at night and on weekends.

I am very pleased to see these lower prices as a result of competition and pro-competitive policies. However, certain companies have sought to derail competition by suing
the FCC to stop the pro-competitive policies adopted in our wireline competition trilogy. I am
confident that we will prevail in that litigation and that American consumers will be the
winners.

The FCC is steadfastly committed to establishing and maintaining free, open, and fair
competition in the telecommunications industry. This week, I established an FCC Task Force
to promote competition. The Task Force will investigate complaints by long-distance service
providers that local exchange companies are impeding their entry into local markets. The
Commission will investigate these complaints and take swift action to stop any anti-competitive
conduct to ensure that competition will prevail.

I am also very proud of our Universal Service policies. Two months ago, the FCC
adopted a universal service program that will provide $2.25 billion to connect schools and
libraries to information networks. Beginning January 1, 1998, schools and libraries across
America will be able to apply for these funds to help students access the Internet, the Library
of Congress, the libraries of the Americas and the world. The Universal Service fund will also
provide $400 million to connect rural health-care providers to communications networks.

I am disappointed that late last month SBC, the newly merged entity formed from the
combination of Pacific Bell and the former Southwest Bell, filed a petition for stay pending
judicial review of our Universal Service order, including the FCC's program to connect
schools and libraries to communications networks.

Congress has clearly directed the Commission to make the benefits of communication
and information technologies available to schools and libraries. In the Telecommunications
Act of 1996, Congress told us to make advanced telecommunications services available to all
Americans, providing "access to advanced telecommunications and information services for all
public and non-profit elementary and secondary school classrooms, health care providers, and
libraries." Yet, SBC questioned the FCC's action in adopting this program as allegedly
arbitrary and capricious.

Only 9% percent of all classrooms had internet access in 1996, according to the U.S.
Department of Education. Lacking such connections, students don't have the tools to develop
the skills they need to become the next generation of business, educational and community
leaders in this information economy. They can't access the extraordinary new data we are
receiving from Mars this month. It takes just 10 and half minutes for these radio signals to
travel from Mars to Earth. But if our Universal Service order is stayed, it will be many more
months or even years before students in classrooms throughout America will have the
technology needed to receive that data.

Millions of children will be ill-served if SBC's appeal delays this Congressionally
mandated program which will dramatically improve education. I am confident of the legal
soundness and statutory basis for the FCC's universal service program to connect schools and
libraries to the information highway. I look forward to a speedy and favorable resolution of
this case.

The FCC has also sought to promote competition by creating opportunities for
businesses, small and large, to acquire wireless telecommunications services licenses through
auctions. To date, small businesses have acquired more than 2,300 licenses in the auction
process.

We are currently examining how we can facilitate competition and service in the
wireless industry through our examination of installment payment issues, and our Notice of
Proposed Rulemaking regarding the general auction rules. Some licensees have told us they
have received financing to build out their systems and bring new services to market. Many
small Personal Communications Services (PCS) businesses plan to build systems this year in
areas where the large companies that won their licenses in the A and B block nearly two years
ago don't plan to reach for years, if ever. Other companies have told us they are close to
closing their financing deals.

Some companies have asked us to take a look at our rules and consider restructuring
their debt obligations for the cost of the license to facilitate capital investment and buildout.
These are difficult issues and we appreciate your input in this process. We are guided by our
commitment to competition and increasing service to all Americans as we decide these tough
issues.

One issue should not be tough, however. Congress should make clear that even in
bankruptcy, the licenses which make use of the public airwaves belong to the public.

Some of the FCC's auction winners and their lawyers claim that if we do not do
massive workouts and forgive a substantial portion of their auction debts, the FCC will be
forced to do so anyway (with a lot of delay) by the bankruptcy courts. Other lawyers say that
we would have no problems in bankruptcy courts with debtors who default.

I know lawyers; I am a lawyer. Worse than that, I am a son of a lawyer. So I know
how lawyers can make the simple complicated and the plain intent of Congress appear unclear.
We should nip in the bud all legal shenanigans about bankruptcy and the government's rights
to its licenses.

All we need to do is have Congress, in the context of the budget debates going on right
now, spell out with the kind of unnecessary but superabundant clarity that will shut down even
the most ingenious lawyer's creativity, the plain, irrefutable fact that the public's airwaves
belong to the public, and any bankrupt licensee and its other creditors has absolutely no right
whatsoever to hold, retain, litigate about, or delay the revocation of any license when that
licensee has not paid monies it promised to the American people.

Let me explain in detail. Section 309(j) of the Communications Act (the Auction
statute) explicitly mandates that the FCC:

promote the development and rapid deployment of new technologies,
products, and services for the benefit of the public, including those residing in
rural areas, without administrative or judicial delays;

promote economic opportunity and competition and ensure that new and
innovative technologies are readily accessible to the American people by
avoiding excessive concentration of licenses and by disseminating licenses
among a wide variety of applicants, including small businesses, rural telephone
companies, and businesses owned by members of minority groups and women;

recover for the public a portion of the value of the public spectrum resource and
avoid unjust enrichment; and

promote efficient and intensive use of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Some lawyers in the private sector wrongly claim that several provisions of the U.S.
Bankruptcy Code, and the delays associated with litigating issues arising under them, conflict
with these mandates. We don't agree. But we don't want to spend time and resources debating
the issue in chapter 11 reorganizations, in chapter 7 bankruptcies or even in our offices.

So, to spare us unnecessary trouble and to declare that the licensees areusing the
public's property which willalways beowned by the public and no one else, Congress should
make it crystal clear to even the most ingenious pettifogging lawyers that the provisions of the
Bankruptcy Code: (1) are not applicableto any FCC license for which a payment obligation is
owed; (2) donot relieve any licensee from payment obligations, and (3) donot affect the
Commission's authority to revoke, cancel, transfer or assign its licenses. Director of the
Office of Management and Budget Franklin Raines wrote House Budget Committee Chairman
John Kasich on July 11 asking for a provision to do just this. I am sending Congress a letter
today asking them to adopt such language in the budget reconciliation bill now in Congress.

The public airwaves are a tremendous resource we can use to create new possibilities for
humankind. As Vice-President Gore said at the World Telecommunications Development
Conference, the global information infrastructure can help us to "share information, to
connect, and to communicate as a global community. From these connections we will derive
robust and sustainable economic progress, strong democracies, better solutions to global and
local environmental challenges, improved health care, and, ultimately, a greater sense of
shared stewardship of our small planet."